“where a good crime C r i m e can be had by all” c h r o n i c l e Issue #217 February 2004 FEATURE TITLE... Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood (277pp Pb 19.95) Kerry Greenwood launches a new series, set in modern Melbourne and introducing Corinna Chapman, baker and reluctant investigator. Baking is an alchemical process for Corinna. At 4 a.m. she starts work at Earthly Delights, her bakery in Calico Alley. But one morning she receives a threatening note saying 'The wages of sin is death' and finds a syringe in her cat's paw. A blue-faced junkie has collapsed in the dark alley and a mysterious man with beautiful eyes appears with a plan for Corinna and her bread. Then it is Goths, dead drug addicts, witchcraft, a homeless boy and a missing girl and it seems she will never get those muffins cooked in time. With flair, chutzpah and a talent for kneading, Corinna will find out who exactly is threatening her life and bake some beautiful bread. This series is sure to please fans of the Phryne Fisher series and I look forward to the next instalment. - Peter 2 Modern Crime Guillermo ARRIAGA Margaret BEVEGE Sweet Scent of Death Decision Time 179pp Pb 23.50 160pp Pb 22.95 This third instalment to feature Jane ADAMS A gritty, violent, but cunningly crafted Elizabeth Ludowski, now firmly Angel Eyes rustic revenge tragedy set in a small established as a Police Commissioner’s 312pp Pb 22.00 Mexican village. With deceptive ‘Special’, sees her cover another four On a cold Sunday morning, ex-copper simplicity, Arriaga depicts how a trail of cases following on from Rough Passage Ray Flowers has little more to worry gunpowder gossip can erupt into (Pb 23.50) and On Probation (Pb 23.50). about than tackling his unwieldy garden. unstoppable violence. (Mexican) (Australian) But his weekend peace is suddenly Michael ASHER Carmel BIRD interrupted by an unexpected phone call. Sandstorm 384pp Tp 29.95 Cape Grimm 302pp Tp 29.95 (English) In 1943, Billy Sterling regains On the far north west coast of Donna ANDERS consciousness beside the wreckage of a Tasmania at Cape Grimm lies the isolated Night Stalker 390pp Pb 17.95 light aircraft and the corpse of the pilot. In community of Skye, which practices a Julia Farley is a 1950, George Sterling is still experiencing religion that reveres the imagination. hard-working single profound anguish over the disappearance When Caleb Mean is born, his mother still recovering of his son, who hasn't been seen for seven grandmother has a vision telling her he is from a marriage gone years. Then George is contacted by a the Chosen One. On Caleb's 34th wrong. Suddenly, her mysterious stranger who claims to be the birthday, he locks the whole community family becomes a co-pilot of the crashed plane and who has into the meeting hall and incinerates target of repeated information that could lead to Billy - for a them. The only survivors are Caleb, his vandalism and price. Another suspenseful thriller from lover Virginia, and their baby daughter, physical threats from the author of Rare Earth. (English) Golden. How could such a thing happen? an unknown predator. Marian BABSON Do the answers lie in the history of Skye (American) In the Teeth of Adversity (1990) itself or do the only real clues lie in the 167pp Pb 17.95 dark truths of fairytales? (Australian) Doug Perkins, his partner Gerry, and Claudia BISHOP KEY their cat, Pandora, have one job to do: A Puree of Poison #11 academic spin gaffes into gold. But this cosy little 260pp Pb 17.95 London PR agency is about to get Hemlock Falls is a banking involved in a disastrous affaire dentaire. pretty little town in Endicott Zayle, dentist to the rich and upstate New York. canine detectives famous, has just killed a beautiful woman Sarah Quilliam, with with an experimental anaesthetic. Or did her talent for clerical he? (American) business, runs the Christopher BELTON Inn. Her sister, Meg, cosy/malice domestic Isolation 372pp Pb 17.95 keeps the patrons A biologically engineered happy with her culinary/food bacterium (that, at its onset, produces culinary abilities. But symptoms similar to flu, but in fact is a when it comes to fbi highly contagious form of meningitis) has murder, the Quilliam accidentally been set loose on the public. sisters have to rely on other skills. feline detectives Now the disease is spreading like (American) Ingrid BLACK forensic wildfire; can it be stopped? (Anglo/Japanese) Dead 416pp Pb 18.95 horse racing mystery Anthony BERKELEY Five years ago, Ed Fagan, the serial Roger Sheringham and the killer known as the Night Hunter, medical Vane Mystery (1927) disappeared. Since then nothing has been 259pp Tp 25.95 heard from him. But now a Dublin military When Mrs Vane is newspaper has received a letter claiming found dead at the to be from Fagan with a chilling message: native american bottom of the cliffs he's going to kill again. When the body of at Ludmouth Bay, prostitute Mary Lynch is found, the police procedural the verdict is of police believe the murderer may well be accidental death. Fagan. But is it? (Irish) political/legal Then the editor of Alice BLANCHARD The Courier sends The Breathtaker psychological gentleman sleuth 367pp Tp 29.95 Roger Sheringham Promise, Oklahoma, is in the middle of private eye to find out why. He Tornado Alley. A deadly twister has left people dead and injured and caused $40 romantic suspense uncovers some murky truths about Mrs Vane’s life and a million worth of damage. At first it seems as though the Pepper family are just four sport second murder. (English) more statistics on the death roll, but Police Chief Charlie Grover soon realises spy that their bodies have been arranged to look like storm victims, while the cause of suspense/thriller their deaths is the hand of man, not an act AUTHOR’S NATIONALITY AT END OF BLURB of god. (American) CRIME CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 2004 www.abbeys.com.au 3 Lilian Jackson BRAUN J R CARROLL Jodi COMPTON The Cat Who Talked Turkey #26 Blindside 415pp Pb 19.95 The 37th Hour 324pp Tp 32.95 224pp Hb 59.95 Shaun McCreadie was a young On a chilly Minnesota morning, When the Klingenschoen Foundation detective with a bright future, until he Detective Sarah Pribek comes home to decides to build a new bookstore, the crossed the line and suddenly found find that her husband and fellow cop, people of Moose County prepare to himself behind prison bars for his role in Michael Shiloh, never arrived in Virginia celebrate the gala groundbreaking of the a brutal home invasion that left two to begin his FBI training. This is a new store. But no one is prepared for the people dead. 11 years later he is out of powerful and subtle novel of family, discovery of a man's body on the same jail. The first thing he does is retrieve the friendship and loss, and a thriller that day. Now Qwill and his cats have their $2.8 million from the heist, in the process will catch you off guard at every turn. work cut out for them. (American) locking horns with the man sent to kill (American) Christopher BROOKMYRE him and confiscate the cash. (Australian) Michael CONNELLY The Sacred Art of Stealing Mark CHISNELL Lost Light 341pp Pb 17.95 410pp Pb 22.95 Wrecking Crew 320pp Pb 18.95 Harry Bosch has finally quit the The press tend to talk about bank Set in the steamy jungles of Indonesia LAPD. When he left, he took a file with robberies as being daring, ingenious and and the shipping lanes of Borneo, this fast him; the case of a young woman audacious. They don’t describe many as paced thriller features modern piracy and murdered four years earlier. The crime Dadaist, even the ones who know what psychological dilemmas: can you justify was linked to a $2 million robbery on a ‘Dadaist’ means. But how else does one killing someone you don't know in order movie set, and the LAPD think the money explain choreographed dancing gunmen to save the life of someone you love? was used by terrorists. Now, with time on in Buchanan Street, or the surreal And, if so, how many unknown people his hands, Harry looks at the old file methods they use to stay one step ahead can you sacrifice? (English) again. (American) of the cops. (Scottish) Agatha CHRISTIE Beverly CONNOR Edna BUCHANAN Poirot: The War Years One Grave Too Many Ice Maiden 306pp Pb 19.95 535pp Tp 29.95 383pp Pb 17.95 A cleverly conceived and expertly This trilogy of bestselling novels includes This novel introduces one of today’s most executed performance, Buchanan knows One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940), Five insightful and complex investigators: both the politics of the newsroom and the Little Pigs (1942) and Taken at the Flood forensic anthropologist Diane Fallon. cop shop as Britt Montero and Sgt Craig (1948). (English) When the dead speak, Diane listens – to Burch discover that the price of justice can Tom CLANCY their bones... (American) sometimes be too high to pay. (American) Red Rabbit 928pp Pb 19.95 Stephen COONTS Mark BURNELL Long before Liberty 481pp Pb 18.95 Gemini 488pp Pb 14.95 becoming President, A Jake Grafton novel. In the Has a notorious Serbian warlord Jack Ryan is a novice aftermath of the savage attacks on the resurfaced in the Far East? Confirmed CIA Analyst.